Ribbon microphones have a dominant footprint in recording history, and it has risen and fallen in different periods of time. In the 1950's the popularity of the ribbon microphones was at its peak.
The ribbon microphones are made with two separate magnets placed in parallel to the opposite poles with an air gap in between to generate a high magnetic field. A thin aluminum foil ribbon is placed in the middle of the magnetic field. The movement of the ribbon generates electrical signals. The signals are increased by a ratio of 1:20 or 1:25 with the use of a transformer.
Early ribbon microphones have very low current signal output due to the weak magnetic field produced by available magnets at that time. Many methods are employed to reach a stronger magnetic field such as increasing the size of the magnets, tapering the magnets or using ferromagnetic material to concentrate the magnetic field in the ribbon area. Because of this, the ribbon microphones were heavy and enormous. Another issue was the ribbon inside the ribbon microphones. The tension of the ribbon is a vital factor in the sound characteristic of the ribbon microphone. The ribbons are made of thin aluminum foil that is brittle, and by a blast of air quickly deform and lose tension. Consequently, the ribbon is put out of place and the microphone starts to generate distortion and loses its original frequency response.
With the rise in popularity of condenser and dynamic microphones with higher signal output, less noise, better frequency response, smaller size and lower weight, the ribbon microphone began to be replaced by condenser and dynamic microphones.
As the audio industry is transferring from analog to digital, engineers are discovering that ribbon microphone sounds more natural in comparison to condenser and dynamic microphones. The warmth and natural sound of the ribbon microphone's especially smooth high frequencies were reasons to raise new demands for ribbon microphones. On the other hand, material science has developed through the years since the early ribbon microphones were invented. A new generation of ribbon microphones has begun to attract the microphone market.
As the demand for ribbon microphones rises many companies are starting to research and develop ribbon microphones with today's technology. The old magnets such as Alnico magnets are being replaced by neodymium magnets for a stronger magnetic field. New transformers and buffer amps are being designed to maximize the sensitivity and terminate the risk of damaging the ribbon by phantom power. Furthermore, new alternative ribbons, called film ribbon, are being introduced to the market. Referring to patent No.: U.S. Pat. No. 8,218,795 B2 the film ribbons are much stronger and have an inherent elasticity to keep their original shape and tension by use of polyethylene terephthalate film polymer and a new method of corrugating. The shape memory of the new ribbon helps the ribbon to return to the original shape any time, it is given tension by a blast of air, phantom power short circuiting or any other reason.
New ribbon microphones are growing fast due to the nature of their sound, practical size, acceptable output signal and sturdiness in comparison to the earlier versions. However, the biggest potential of modern day ribbon microphones has not yet been revealed. The greatest potential will be something that none of the other types of microphones are capable of: The ability to control the tension of the ribbon.
With the old ribbon materials, it was impossible to change the tension of the ribbon repeatedly. Instead, the new alternative materials can be used as an advantage to build a tunable ribbon microphone with a function to change the tension of the ribbon easily and quickly by one. Thus, one always has the choice to set the ribbon tension back to the factory default or explore new characteristics. In conventional microphones, the tension of the ribbon or diaphragm of microphones is always precisely adjusted in the manufacturing depending on the use of the microphone, and the user does not have any control over it. So in conventional microphones recording engineers always use many microphones with different characteristics that suits a particular type of sound, and they have to change many microphones to reach their desired result. The different tension of ribbon or diaphragm can produce different frequency and dynamic responses. The ability to change ribbon tension in tunable ribbon microphone helps recording engineers to have more options before deciding to change the microphone. Different tensions of the ribbon in addition to changing the frequency response and harmonics, also has a direct effect on initial attack and resonates in dynamic form of the captured sound. By controlling the tension of the ribbon one can achieve much broader possibilities to record a sound. By using tunable ribbon microphones the process to find the desired sound can be much faster, and the result would be more interesting. In contrast, using conventional microphones involves changing to find the best transducer for the purpose of recording which is time-consuming and in some cases finding the desired result is impossible without using a tunable ribbon microphone.
Tunable ribbon microphone brings a new world of experimenting for audio engineers to discover the effect of different tension of ribbon on different sound sources. The tunable ribbon microphone will potentially revolutionize the microphone industry and open up new angles of development for microphone designers and manufacturers.
It is therefore an object of invention to provide control over pressure of the ribbon by one.
It is another object of the invention to provide an improved structure for a ribbon microphone which is simple in construction, cost effective and more practical than the conventional ribbon microphones.
It is another object of the invention to provide a fast, easy and precise way to adjust the pressure of the ribbon on tunable ribbon microphone.
It is another object of the invention to provide a ribbon microphone that can be specifically and precisely adjusted for different situations and sound sources.
It is another object of the invention to provide a ribbon microphone that is a more practical tool for vocal recording due to many different characteristics of vocal sounds.
It is another object of the invention to provide an ability to tune ribbon pressure for a certain fundamental frequency matched by sound source to capture most of the harmonics.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide an ability to adjust the microphone to be capable of capturing ultra-high pressure sound sources.
It is yet another object of the invention to control the dynamic of signals before using any signal compressor by simply adjusting ribbon pressure.
It is yet another object of the invention to emphasis certain frequencies from sound sources and shape the captured sound before any conversion.
It is yet another object of the invention to be able to record a larger variety of sound with just one microphone.